The Members of Blink-182: Where Are They Now?
Blink 182 #Blink182
Blink-182 is a pop-punk band that shot to stardom in 1999 with the release of their best-selling album Enema of the State
Blink-182 was one of the biggest pop-punk bands of the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Formed in 1992, the band originally consisted of bassist and co-lead vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist and co-lead vocalist Tom DeLonge and drummer Scott Raynor. They released two albums – 1995’s Cheshire Cat and 1997’s Dude Ranch – before Raynor was replaced with Travis Barker.
While Blink-182 already had some recognition in the music world, they found mainstream success in 1999 with the release of their first album with Barker, Enema of the State. According to NPR, Enema of the State became their best-selling album and sold over 15 million records. In 2001, they released their follow-up record, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, which is their second best-selling album. It reached number one on the Billboard 200 the week it debuted. Their only other album to hit number one on the charts was California in 2016.
DeLonge left Blink-182 in 2005 and formed the band Angels & Airwaves. After rejoining the trio a few years later, he left again in 2015 and was replaced by Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. In 2022, however, Blink-182 announced the reunion of their iconic trio by teasing their new single “Edging,” an upcoming album and a world tour on Instagram. Following the announcement, DeLonge paid tribute to his fill-in Skiba on Instagram. The guitarist said it was “important for the world to know that I honor him,” and he wanted to personally thank Skiba for all he did “to keep the band alive and thriving in my absence.”
Blink-182 was initially slated to kick off their tour in March 2023 but was forced to postpone when Barker injured his finger twice in less than a month and needed surgery. Instead, they’ll hit the road in May 2023 — starting in Saint Paul, Minnesota — and will travel to Europe, Latin America and Australia.
In April 2023, they made a surprise performance at Coachella after being added to the lineup just one day prior. This performance marked the first time the band’s most notable members had been onstage together since 2015. Their high-energy set featured songs like “I Miss You,” “What’s My Age Again,” “All The Small Things” and the live debut of “Edging.”
Here’s a look into the lives of the members of Blink-182, then and now.
Mark Hoppus, 51 
The bassist, co-lead vocalist and songwriter of Blink-182, Mark Hoppus, is the only member of the band to appear on every album they’ve released. He was born in Ridgecrest, California, on March 15, 1972.
Hoppus received his first bass guitar as a gift from his father when he was in high school and taught himself to play by listening to bands like the Descendents and The Cure. He played in a few bands while studying to be an English teacher at Cal State San Marcos, which is when his sister Anne introduced him to DeLonge.
The two formed Blink-182 in August 1992 and started playing gigs at punk clubs, according to the Los Angeles Times. After they signed a record deal with San Diego-based Cargo Records, the band released their first album, Cheshire Cat, in 1995. They switched to MCA Records for their second album, Dude Ranch, which came out in 1997.
Following Blink-182’s hiatus in 2005, Hoppus formed another group with Barker called +44, and they released one album, When Your Heart Starts Beating, in November 2006. The bassist is also part of another band called Simple Creatures, which he formed with All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth in 2019. They’ve released two EPs together, Strange Love and Everything Opposite.
In addition to his musical endeavors, Hoppus has worked on several other side projects. He was formerly a part-owner of Atticus Clothing and Macbeth Footwear with DeLonge. In 2012, he established another company, HiMyNameIsMark, which sells guitars, clothing and accessories. Hoppus also hosts a podcast called After School Radio on Apple Music, which has featured guests like Billy Idol and Good Charlotte.
Hoppus has been married to his wife Skye Everly since December 2000. In 2022, the couple celebrated their 22nd anniversary by sharing some black-and-white throwback photos from their wedding on Instagram. Hoppus and his wife also share a son named Jack. While his son often attends Blink-182 concerts, the bassist told PEOPLE in 2018 that Jack “likes what I do” but also thinks he’s “a lame dad.”
In April 2021, Hoppus was diagnosed with stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and accidentally revealed his the diagnosis on Instagram when he posted a photo of himself in a chemotherapy chair that June. The musician underwent five months of treatment before he was declared cancer-free in September 2021.
After his diagnosis, Hoppus leaned heavily on his wife and mother, who received successful treatment for the same cancer in 2019. Hoppus told PEOPLE his wife gave him some tough love when he was first diagnosed, which helped him “snap out of it” and “do the work” to get better.
“She researched all the best foods, like, ‘This helps with the nausea, and this helps with the dehydration, and this helps with the recovery,’ ” he said. “My wife was awesome from day one.”
His Blink-182 bandmates were also there for Hoppus during his cancer journey. When Barker and DeLonge heard about his diagnosis, they visited him at home before he started chemotherapy. “It was the first time that all three of us were in the same room in like five years,” Hoppus told PEOPLE. “It’s actually better than it used to be. There was no agenda. There were no lingering grudges. It felt very back to what it should be: three friends sitting in a room.”
Hoppus returned to the stage in November 2021 when he performed with Barker at his House of Horrors Halloween show. His other recent musical collaborations include features on “Growing Up” by McFly in 2020 and “All I Wanted” by Avril Lavigne in 2022.
A few months before Blink-182 announced their reunion in October 2022, Hoppus told PEOPLE he was open to getting the band back together. “I keep writing music, and I’m open to whatever the next phase of Blink is,” he said. “I’m hopeful for the future. I’m just damn glad to be here.”
Tom DeLonge, 47 
Guitarist, co-lead vocalist and songwriter of Blink-182, Tom DeLonge, was born in Poway, California on Dec. 13, 1975. According to MTV, he attended Poway High School, where he met drummer and future bandmate Raynor. DeLonge had wanted to start a band since he discovered punk rock music in the seventh grade, and after he was introduced to Hoppus in 1992, the three musicians formed the first iteration of Blink-182.
DeLonge is a primary songwriter on the band’s first five albums — Cheshire Cat, Dude Ranch, Enema of the State, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and Blink-182. Known for his humorous lyrics, DeLonge jokingly told the Los Angeles Times in 1999 he was “a poet” and “never had time to go to college or grow up or anything,” so that’s why he wrote “immature” lyrics.
He left Blink-182 for the first time in 2005 when the band announced an indefinite hiatus. At the time, DeLonge said he considered his bandmates’ priorities “mad different,” according to an MTV interview. Following this split from the band, the musician formed a new group, Angels & Airwaves, whom he continued to play with through 2021. Initially reuniting with Blink-182 in 2009 for a new album, Neighborhoods, DeLonge left the band for a second time in 2015. In addition to the growing tensions between him and his two bandmates, the vocalist also wanted to focus on other projects.
After DeLonge’s 2015 departure, he turned his attention from music to space. He founded To the Stars, a science fiction media company that develops films, books, comics and TV shows. Delonge later expanded this company to include To the Stars… Academy of Arts & Science, a publisher, merchandiser and production studio. In 2019, he executive produced the History Channel docuseries Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation, which explored unexplained aerial phenomena alongside former CIA and Department of Defense members.
“It’s always hard when you’re transitioning from something that you’ve worked your entire life, up to that point, to achieve, but the only two things on Earth — outside of my family — that I was interested in were music and this subject,” he told PEOPLE about leaving Blink-182 to pursue his interest in extraterrestrial life. “When I got brought into the arms of how the subject works, and what it is, it was a very easy choice.”
DeLonge filed for divorce from his wife, Jennifer DeLonge, in September 2019 after 18 years of marriage. The former couple were high school sweethearts and wed in May 2001. They also share two children, Ava Elizabeth and Jonas Rocket. In May 2021, DeLonge got remarried to his girlfriend Marie and shared the news on Instagram by posting a selfie in front of a courthouse.
After years of minimal contact, DeLonge reconnected with Hoppus in 2021 when he reached out to his former bandmate for help with a divorce paper and thus discovered his cancer diagnosis. “We weren’t really talking much at all, maybe once every couple of months, a little text here and there. But now, we talk multiple times a day,” DeLonge revealed in an interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe. “We’ve been able to completely repair that friendship and really cut to the depth of who we are as people and what this is all about.”
Despite telling Lowe he “didn’t know if I was going to play music anymore” after leaving Blink-182 in 2015, DeLonge teased his return to the band in August 2022. He posted a black-and-white throwback photo of the trio on Instagram and tagged the group in the caption. He officially revealed his return to the band two months later when Blink-182 announced their new single “Edging” and a 2023/2024 world tour.
DeLonge showed his appreciation for Skiba, who took his place in the band after 2015, by posting a note on Instagram that he had personally sent to the musician. “Emotions between the three of us in blink have always been complicated, but Mark’s cancer really put things in perspective,” he wrote. “But to be honest, the band would not even be here today if it were not for your ability to jump in and save the day. So from my heart to yours, thank you for being a member of our band.”
Scott Raynor, 44 
The original drummer of Blink-182 was Scott Raynor, who was born in Poway, California, in 1978. He helped form the band after meeting DeLonge in high school. Raynor played for Blink-182 from 1992 to 1998 and was featured on the band’s first two albums, Cheshire Cat and Dude Ranch.
He exited the band in 1998 and was replaced by Barker. Following his departure from Blink-182, Raynor went on to perform in several other bands including One Track Mind, Grimbly and The Wraith.
Travis Barker, 47 
Drummer, producer and songwriter Travis Barker was born in Fontana, California, on Nov. 14, 1975. When he was 4, his mom bought him his first drum kit, and he started lessons a year later, per Loudwire. He continued to use that same drum kit until he was 15.
Barker’s mother died from cancer when he was young. Speaking with Vice in 2015, he recalled the last piece of career advice she gave him. “From the moment after my mom passed away, I really followed the last words she told me. ‘Play the drums and don’t care about anything else in life but doing the things you love,’ ” he said. “I did that. I did it in an unforgiving way, I didn’t care what anyone told me, and my mind was made up. I almost felt like she was orchestrating things upstairs, I don’t know if it’s fate.”
Barker played in several punk rock bands before joining the Aquabats, a ska punk group, in 1994. He was featured on the band’s 1997 album, The Fury of the Aquabats!, and joined their tour with Blink-182 that same year. When Raynor left Blink-182 in 1998, DeLonge and Hoppus asked Barker to fill in on the drums, and he learned 20 of their songs in just 45 minutes.
The drummer’s first album with Blink-182 was Enema of the State, which was released in 1999 and included their hit song “All The Small Things.” Barker has played on every album since then, including Blink-182, Neighborhoods and California.
In his personal life, Barker has been married three times. He had a short-lived marriage with Melissa Kennedy from 2001 to 2002 before tying the knot with Shanna Moakler on Oct. 30, 2004, in Santa Barbara, California. Moakler had one child from a previous relationship, Atiana De La Hoya, and the pair have two children together, Landon and Alabama. In 2005, the couple got their own MTV reality show, Meet the Barkers, but separated just a year later. After multiple reconciliations, Barker and Moakler divorced in 2008.
Barker is currently married to reality star Kourtney Kardashian, whom he wed in three different ceremonies in 2022. They made their first appearance as a blended family — Kardashian has three children with ex-boyfriend Scott Disick — at the premiere of The Kardashians in April 2022.
In August 2021, Barker took his first plane ride in over a decade. He had not stepped on a plane since 2008 when he survived a deadly crash that killed four people and left Barker with third-degree burns on more than half of his body. The drummer told NYLON in September 2021 that he wouldn’t have considered flying again without Kardashian’s support.
“It’s still something very new to me, but having something that gives me the strength and hope to be able to overcome things that were so traumatic in my life, it just says a ton,” he said. “She’s definitely that for me. I’m invincible when I’m with her. It’s just like I never dreamed, I never even considered flying again.”
In addition to drumming for Blink-182, Barker has made plenty of ventures outside of the band. He founded a clothing line, Famous Stars and Straps, in 1999, founded his own record label in 2019 named DTA Records and launched a vegan wellness company called Barker Wellness in 2021.
Barker has also collaborated with many other artists, including Willow Smith, Machine Gun Kelly and JXDN. He released his debut solo album in 2011 called Give the Drummer Some and has experimented with a few other bands, namely +44 (a separate group he formed with Hoppus), TRV$DJAM (a duo he formed with late friend DJ AM) and The Transplants.
Known for his energetic drumming style, Rolling Stone named Barker one of their top 100 greatest drummers of all time in 2016. The outlet called him “an animalistic artist who performs fiercely and is unafraid to go theatrical.”
In 2018, Blink-182 was forced to cancel a small tour due to blood clots that were discovered in both of Barker’s arms. More recently, the band had to postpone the Latin American leg of their 2023 world tour so Barker could have surgery on a smashed finger.
Matt Skiba, 47 
Matt Skiba was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1976. According to Vice, the musician was originally a drummer and played with several bands in his early days, including Blunt and The Jerkwaters. He made the switch to guitar and became the frontman of Alkaline Trio in 1996 when he helped form the band.
Over the years, they released nine studio albums and were even the opening act for Blink-182 in 2001 on their Take Off Your Pants and Jacket tour. Already familiar with the band, it wasn’t a hard decision for Skiba to accept an offer to replace DeLonge in Blink-182 after he left in 2015.
“I didn’t really have to think about it — the only thing I was juggling in my head was Alkaline Trio’s schedule,” he told Vulture in October 2022. “I was like, ‘It’s a pretty crazy idea, but if you guys think it’ll work, I’m down to give it a shot.’ “
Skiba was able to balance being in both Blink-182 and Alkaline Trio from 2015 to 2022. In addition to playing and singing on Blink-182’s California and Nine, he contributed to Alkaline Trio’s 2018 album Is This Thing Cursed? and an EP called E.P. in 2020. Most recently, Alkaline Trio performed at the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas in October 2022.
The guitarist has also worked on several side projects over the years. He released his first full-length solo album titled Demos in 2010 followed by Babylon in 2012. The same year, Skiba also formed a group with drummer Atom Willard called theHell and put out an EP, Sauve Les Requins.
When Blink-182 announced their reunion in October 2022, the news didn’t come as a shock to Skiba. Speaking with Vulture two months later, the guitarist revealed that Hoppus had informed him they were in talks with DeLonge about returing to the band.
“What’s happened between Tom and his bandmates is between them. I really am genuinely glad, as a fan of the band, that they’re a family again,” he said. ” I’m honored to have been asked to fill in for Tom or to join the band or however you want to phrase it. I’m proud of the work that I did with them. We had a great time … There’s no bad blood, there’s no drama, there’s no nothing. It’s just the next chapter in the band’s life.”
Skiba also shared his own message to the band on Instagram after DeLonge thanked him publicly for filling in. In addition to congratulating the band, he expressed his thanks and said, “I am truly grateful for my time with blink and I am truly happy you guys are a band and a family again. THANKS TO THE BAND AND ALL THE BLINK FANS FOR HAVING ME. You were delicious!”
Skiba told Vulture there is “almost a whole album’s worth of stuff” he worked on with Blink-182 before Delonge’s return but has “no idea” if that will ever come out and is now focused on his music with Alkaline Trio.
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